Spotlight - Review
This review of Spotlight is spoiler-free!
Before I considered myself a film connoisseur of sorts, I used to not truly understand the Oscars and what they thought was a truly good film. How could a movie like The King's Speech be considered a better film than Captain America: The First Avenger? Truth be told, I may have been a bit of a simple kid who enjoyed the occasional blockbuster film. That's certainly not to say now that I don't love superhero films, because I do, but I do recognize what makes a film so great. Nearly two years ago, a film was given the greatest prize in all of film: Best Picture. That film would be, obviously as you can tell by the title, Spotlight. At the time, I didn't really have a true interest in checking out the movie, but as my interest in film grew I began to have more and more of an interest in films that the academy considered to be great. And so, I began my journey through Best Picture winners with Spotlight.
Phew, where do I begin on the story of Spotlight? This is a film that wants to shine a light on something, as the actual story does. Enough pretext though, the story of this movie is that of the Boston Globe. In 2001, the new editor of this paper saw fit to investigate claims against a priest with a history of molestation accusations totaling over 80 children. Led by Walter Robinson, the Spotlight team sought to uncover the truth behind why these accusations were never handled, and in doing so they discovered a much deeper and dark truth about the Roman Catholic Church: this wasn't a one-time occurrence. Straight out of the gate, I cried a lot during this movie. I know that not everyone will do this and truthfully not a ton of people will feel the impact of this movie like I did. Being that I grew up in a religious household and being an altar boy, there's the terrible fear that this could perhaps have happened to me and makes me question my religious past. A story that can make me think so deeply about who I am and what could have been to me is incredible and hits a chord that many other films cannot. Simply stellar work by everyone who worked on Spotlight to dramatize this true story and make it just as painful and pungent as the real deal.
There are so many characters that are played on an exceptional level in this movie, but there's only really one that I can think of that I really want to talk about, and truthfully I could probably talk about him for a good while. That is Mark Ruffalo's portrayal of Michael Rezendes. Of everyone in this group of reporters, Michael is the one that seems to be the most personally impacted by everything that is transpiring throughout the film and Ruffalo shows such emotion and power through his performance that he nearly brought me to tears on multiple occasions. There is a sequence later in the film where he is trying to convince Michael Keaton's Walter Robinson of something and the pure emotion and pain that is coming from him is so palpable that I did actually begin to cry. I'm not aware of who won the best supporting actor from this year in film, but I can't in good conscience say that Ruffalo didn't deserve it for how fantastic he was in Spotlight.
In most cases, I usually have to think about what I want to talk about here, but with Spotlight I know what I want to discuss. It's the pure ability to draw emotion and pain from its viewers. Being a more recent event, this scandal within the Catholic Church is still rather fresh in the minds of nearly all those who follow the church. Those working behind the scenes and on screen in Spotlight know how to handle the material in a way that is incredibly important and emotionally draining. When watching a movie, I've never had to actually sit back and stop because of pure anguish, but I found myself doing that on multiple occasions with Spotlight. The reality that so many children and teens were either molested, abused, or raped by priests who were protected by the church makes me angry and saddened. So while for many I can see that pain not landing, anyone with a history of religion will understand why this film is so painful to watch.
Without question, I believe Spotlight deserved its place as the best film of 2015. Tackling such recent and important moments in history is sometimes difficult to do in a way that hits with viewers and manages to hold true to watch actually happened. While I won't spend time actually debating over whether the events occurred exactly the way they did in the film, I simply want to recognize just how great this movie is. With a performance as impeccable as that of Mark Ruffalo and excellent other portrayals around him, Spotlight is an emotional gut-punch and shows just how disgusting and corrupt some governmental bodies can be. Safe to say about the issues facing our world today, we still need Spotlight.
